


Lenses

by dinaerys



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Kingsman: The Golden Circle Spoilers, Mourning, Post-Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Short One Shot, its not actually slashy but the slash tag is the only one for them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinaerys/pseuds/dinaerys
Summary: Merlin left a spare pair of glasses at Statesman HQ





	Lenses

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing ever pointed to Merlin having a spare pair of glasses, but bear with me here. You can read this as shippy or just platonic, I headcanon it platonically but hey, everyone has their interpretation.

The glasses hang heavy in her front pocket, secreted away into the lining of her jacket during the ruckus of the Galahad pair returning. The weight over her heart presses comfortingly against the deep breath she draws to speak in her own favor, _always her against the room_ , to step up as the new Whiskey. Silver cups raise universally and that first, bated breath settles from her chest again in relief. Somehow the lightness in her heart is capped, anchored; she has to force another inhale past the crushing weight in her breast pocket. Champ’s gaze skims over the hard shape pressing through the blazer and glimmers with an indistinguishable sentiment halfway between pride and sorrow. She knows the pride, recognizes the abating of the frustration at grew every time the late Whiskey’s cup remained steadfastly on the table, but the depth of sadness slips her understanding.

\---

Though she now stands in the rank of field agents, none of the new potential “Gingers” can quite stack up against her when it really comes down to the wire. She doesn’t mention the small tweaks to her personal station that push her efficacy higher than it had ever been, small comments and macros and blocks of code riddled with the ghost of a thick Scottish accent and an alarming number of curse words. With a brand new pair of true Statesman glasses resting comfortably on her head, with her bone-deep restlessness at being held back eased, she realizes incrementally that the agents would indeed be nowhere without their strategy. As if on cue, a new small dialogue box pops unobtrusively into the bottom right corner of her screen, a sharply sarcastic congratulations triggered by her point agent indicating safety. The words glimmer softly on the horn-rimmed lenses propped below her screen. She suddenly feels very lonely, status updates still chiming through her earpiece.

\---

The glasses follow her everywhere now, perched on the corner of the screen at base and tucked, as always, into her breast pocket out in the field. Only Champ and Tequila spare her so-called “spare pair” a second glance, too familiar with Kingsman styles to be fooled but tightly-leashed sympathy keeping their mouths shut. Tequila is softer with her now than he’d been in the past, not in condescension but with acknowledgement. When she’s too sharp with the strategy in her ear for not being fast enough, calm enough, _him_ enough, Tequila spares half a glance before pushing the situation straight through, and the rest of the agents simply attribute it to her experience, and no one ever asks after the source of her fraying patience.

\---

One lonely night in the spartan hotel she’s holed up in awaiting a target, she slips the heavy, black glasses over her face before she has time to let herself think. Green unfurls across her vision, data quickly ticking by in the corners, and the central display glows to life. They’re still peripherally connected to the Kingsman central computer, restricted access to active agents but full grasp of the considerable archives—the work of the older Galahad, she’s sure. A solemn nod to their shared connection, the twinkle in his eye as he watched her tuck the glasses away. The most recent workspace rings her view, files and windows and maps, some now censored or archived and one, pinned in the top right, labeled “re: Ginger.” The inclusion of her handle is startling, and the contents of the file even more so: a glowing recommendation addressed to Champ from the desk of Kingsman’s esteemed strategist detailing her merits as a field agent. His last work never intended to be the last, penned and sent from a Statesman jet in the skies above the Atlantic. She can’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

If her main set of glasses looks a little different when she returns from that mission—a little darker, thicker, larger—none of the other agents find reason to comment. Champ quietly dismisses the small alert on the central system that their server is being accessed by external hardware, just as the elder Galahad slips into the freshly-constructed strategic center of the fledgling Kingsman complex, cloaking a single data stream from the inquisitive minds of new trainees. The mission is over—everyone sheds their solitary tear differently.


End file.
